US medical doctors write billions of prescriptions every year. Throughout 2024, although, one sort of drug stood out—“marvel medicine” often known as GLP-1 agonists.

As of September, one in all each 20 prescriptions written for adults was for one in all these medicine, in line with the well being information firm Truveta.

The medicine, which embody Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Victoza, are used to deal with diabetes, since they assist generate insulin. However their recognition exploded after scientists decided the medicine inform your mind you’re not hungry. With out these starvation cues, folks discover they will lose 10% of their physique weight, or much more.

Throughout 2024, the medicine’ recognition hit an all-time excessive, in line with Tricia Rodriguez, a principal utilized scientist at Truveta, which research medical data of 120 million People, or a few third of the inhabitants.

“Amongst adults, 5.4% of all prescriptions in September 2024 have been for GLP-1s,” Rodriguez says. That’s up from 3.5% a yr earlier, in 2023, and 1% in the beginning of 2021.

In response to Truveta’s information, individuals who get prescriptions for these medicine are youthful, whiter, and extra more likely to be feminine. Actually, ladies are twice as possible as males to get a prescription.

But not everybody who’s prescribed the medicine finally ends up taking them. Actually, Rodriguez says, half the brand new prescriptions for weight problems are going unfilled.

That’s very uncommon, she says, and might be as a consequence of shortages or sticker shock over the price of the remedy. Many insurers don ’t cowl weight-loss medicine, and the out-of-pocket worth might be $1,300 a month, in line with USA Right this moment.

“For many drugs, prescribing charges and meting out charges are just about equivalent,” says Rodriguez. “However for GLP-1s, we see this hole, which is absolutely distinctive. It is suggestive that persons are actually considering getting these drugs, however for no matter motive, they aren’t at all times in a position to.”

It additionally means the variety of folks taking these medicine might go larger—perhaps a lot larger—if insurers would pay. “I do not assume that we’re on the saturation level, or essentially nearing the saturation level,” says Rodriguez, noting that round 70% of People are obese or overweight.

Use of the medicine may additionally develop dramatically if new purposes are discovered. Firms are already exploring whether or not they can deal with habit, and even Alzheimer’s.

Most of the clues about these potential makes use of are coming immediately out of individuals’s medical data. As a result of so many individuals are on the medicine, it means researchers like Rodriguez have a gold mine to sift via for indicators of how use of the medicine is affecting different well being issues.

“As a result of we’ve so many sufferers which are on these drugs, you are actually more likely to have a great quantity that even have all of those different situations,” she says. “One of many issues we’re enthusiastic about is: How can real-world information assist speed up how rapidly we are able to perceive these?”

Listed below are among the new makes use of of GLP-1 medicine which are being explored, primarily based on hints from real-world affected person data.

Alzheimer’s illness

This yr, researchers poking via data of one million folks discovered that taking semaglutide (offered as Wegovy and Ozempic) was related to a 40% to 70% decrease likelihood of an Alzheimer’s analysis.

It is nonetheless a guess why the medicine may be serving to (or whether or not they actually do), however giant worldwide research are underway to observe up on the lead. Medical doctors are recruiting folks with early Alzheimer’s in additional than 30 nations who will take both a placebo or semaglutide for 2 years. Then we’ll see how a lot their dementia has progressed.

Dependancy

The anecdotes are all over the place: An individual on a weight-loss drug finds starvation isn’t the one craving that appears to cease.

These are the kinds of clues Eli Lilly’s CEO, David Ricks, says his firm will pursue subsequent yr, testing whether or not its GLP-1 drug, tirzepatide (referred to as Mounjaro for diabetes remedy, and Zepbound for weight reduction), might assist with habit to alcohol, nicotine, and “different issues we don’t take into consideration [as being] related to weight.”

In feedback he made in December, Ricks stated the medicine may be “anti-hedonics”—which means they counteract our hedonistic pursuit of enjoyment, be it from meals, alcohol, or medicine. A examine this yr mining digital well being data discovered that opioid addicts taking the medicine have been about half as more likely to have had an overdose.

Sleep apnea

This concept goes again a methods, together with to a 2015 case examine of a 260-pound man with diabetes and sleep apnea. When he went on the drug liraglutide, medical doctors observed that his sleeping improved.

In sleep apnea, an individual gasps for air at evening—it’s annoying and, with time, causes well being issues.  This yr, Eli Lilly printed a examine within the New England Journal of Medication on its drug tirzepatide , discovering that it induced a 50% lower in respiration interruption in obese sufferers with sleep apnea.

Longevity

This yr, the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration authorized Wegovy as a cardiovascular medication, after researchers confirmed the medicine might scale back coronary heart assault and stroke in obese folks.

However that wasn’t all. The examine, involving 17,000 folks, discovered that the drug diminished the general likelihood somebody would die for any motive (often known as “all-cause mortality”) by 19%.

That now has getting old researchers paying consideration. This yr they named Wegovy, and medicines prefer it, amongst their the highest 4 candidates for a normal life-extension drug.